How a Soviet cartoonist drew Hitler from real life!
Hitler wasn't the only high-ranking Nazi Boris Yefimov painted from real life.
It happened in September 1933. Cartoonist Boris Yefimov was returning to the USSR from a business trip to France and had stopped in Berlin for three days along the way.
One day, he was strolling along Wilhelmstrasse and approached the Reich Presidential Palace, where SS men were gathered. And, at that moment, a group of officials emerged from the palace, led by Hitler.
"He looked at no one, his green plush hat pulled down over his eyes… his sharp triangular nose buried in his wispy moustache. He was wearing a khaki raincoat and wide black trousers," the artist wrote in his memoirs.
"Seeing my so familiar model, I involuntarily paused, watching the sullen Reich Chancellor climb into the car. However, noticing an SS man's icy and menacing gaze fixed on me, I thought it best not to linger and quickened my pace…" Efimov recalled.
He hastily sketched the scene he saw on paper. From then on, Efimov began depicting the Führer so frequently and so trenchantly that the German Foreign Ministry even officially complained to the USSR.
Hitler wasn't the only high-ranking Nazi the artist painted from real life. He attended the Nuremberg Trials, where he was also able to capture the surviving leaders of the Third Reich on paper.
